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Vienna around the fin de siècle had certain well-defined categories of citizens. The tenor of social life there was given by the aristocracy which — centred around its peak, the court — exercised all the high functions connected with a still old-fashioned court, and was generally and gladly accepted as the social prima donna. Second to the court and aristocracy came the Church, the Army and the Administration. It was proverbial that these noble bosses (with some exceptions of course) never overworked themselves. Not to work — in a common sense — was a part of noblesse oblige. I think this is quite an important fact. The less time was lost in work, the more was left for the only admissible competition: the desire to excel each other in the tasks of noblesse, based on solidity and refinement. Third came a titled group without century-old pedigrees. They were the lower layer of the aristocracy, composed mostly of men (or their descendants) who for outstanding achievements in the army or in the administration were chosen for promotion to noble rank. Long service — endurance — was counted as one of the achievements. Also a few merchants and bankers were on occasion rewarded in this way. In the second half of the nineteenth century even artists, scientists, doctors, educators and so on, were raised to nobility — presumably in the last phase of its fading glory. Then came three layers of bourgeoisie, and towards the bottom the varied groups below the white collar supremacy. Among them were wine-growers, for very good wine was grown in the close vicinity of Vienna. The wine-keller, in the winter, and especially the wine-garden in spring and summer, were frequented by everyone. There the social categories mixed and, if sufficiently animated by the young wine, even fraternized for a few hours in the equality of intoxication. These gardens were often in front of the vineyards. The wine was served in carafes, from the cask. Song and women were never missing. It was the most intoxicating trio ensemble — leading to freedom-from-care.

     The lower classes in Vienna were a rather rough crowd, in contrast to the upper ones, who excelled in great charm and elegance. It was, I repeat, the eleventh hour of that culture which begins in the home and probably also ends there. A kind of effort to enjoy these last performances of that culture was quite striking. The upper classes in Vienna seemed to know that they were doomed. It was a last escape into sweet superficiality, into an aesthetically pleasant defeatism. One of the best characterizations of this decadence-conscious Vienna was given by her own people during the First World War. With an inclination to joke about their weaknesses, they parodied a German Army communique. The Germans reported: ‘The situation is serious but not at all desperate.’ The Viennese: ‘The situation is desperate, but not at all serious.’

     Life in such an atmosphere was not enjoyable for everyone. I, for one, did not feel entirely happy there. The spirit of defeatism gradually permeating the air hemmed in creative impulses and the healthy development of higher gifts,both not yet rare among the Viennese. The maxim: enjoy as much as possible the mannered elegance, as well as more robust pastimes, was not conducive to so-called serious ambitions. When my family moved to Vienna because of my assignment to the musical profession, we first lived in a sort of ghetto — a voluntary ghetto, not a compulsory one, as for instance in Czarist Russia. Very soon after, we moved to a somewhat less homogenous quarter. I don’t remember very much about the chosen ghetto: just the street, the synagogue and the grocer where I often went to get things for my mother. I remember that the herrings always smelled of kerosene, because the two commodities were kept in barrels next to each other. I remember also our family doctor, Doctor Ignatz Kreisler, the father of Fritz Kreisler, the famous violinist. I thus knew Fritz Kreisler, who is several years older than I, from my boyhood on. His father, the doctor, still alive in my memory, was an angelic man with a white beard, one of the kindest I remember.

     After I had started, on Leschetizky’s advice, my lessons with Madame Essipoff, someone told my mother that I ought also to have instruction in composition. So one day she took me to Mr Anton Bruckner. I remember exactly the little I saw of his home, also the street and even the number of the house. We went up one flight of stairs, knocked at a door, and heard the sound of slowly approaching slippers. A bald-headed man opened the door, just wide enough for me to peep in. I noticed a dusty hallway with some laurel wreaths piled up, and stacks of music. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. My mother explained: ‘I want you to give lessons in theory to my son.’ He grumbled: ‘I don’t teach children,’ pushed us out and closed the door. This was my only personal acquaintance with Bruckner. Afterwards I saw him only from a greater distance.

     Because of this futile interview with Bruckner, Leschetizky had to recommend another teacher in composition and theory for me. He mentioned a much less well-known composer. This new teacher was very pedantic, dry, and uninspiring. I must have shown some resistance — though I was in later years often praised for having always been a ‘good’ boy, patient, and if dissatisfied, chiefly with myself. At any rate, I left this new teacher after a few months of instruction and was taken to the third trainer recommended to us. He was Dr Mandiczewski. Dr Mandiczewski was a great, a wonderful man. He was in charge of the archives at the Society of the Friends of Music. It was not a municipal or imperial school, but was subsidized. Mandiczewski was the amanuensis of Brahms, so I was very lucky. I studied with him for years, and he was always very nice to me. I had to go a fairly long way from my family’s apartment to the one room in which he lived. (At that time most musicians lived rather modestly: I have also seen Brahms’s rooms — only two rooms — very different from the mansions our present-day stars live in.) I had to be at Mandiczewski’s at eight o’clock in the morning — he had no time to give me lessons at any other hour, for at 9.15 or so he had to be in the archives. I was then eleven or twelve. He allowed me to accompany him to his archives, and stay there as long as I wished. He never paid much attention to my presence, and I could acquaint myself with all the treasures there in perfect leisure. A few simple rooms — I think not even fire-proof — filled with the most precious musical documents — numerous manuscripts of the greatest composers and a great collection of works presenting the history of music. While I with awe was idling in this shrine, Mandiczewski went on with his work.

     It was the habit of Brahms every Sunday morning of the spring and autumn season to make an excursion (if the weather permitted) into the lovely hilly woods surrounding Vienna. He was accompanied by a few friends, chiefly musicians. When I was twelve to thirteen, Mandiczewski thought me old enough to join them once in a while. I thus enjoyed the unique privilege of spending several Sundays as a boy with Brahms and his companions. One gathered for these excursions at eight in the morning, at a tram-stop opposite the Vienna Opera, took a tram, drawn by one horse, drove through suburbs to the terminal and continued then on foot. On all these occasions Brahms treated me in the same manner: before a meal he would ask me whether I was hungry; after one, whether I had had enough. That was all he ever said to me. Why, after all, should he talk to a child?

     I also often saw Brahms indoors. Mandiczewski knew most of those Viennese families to whom good music, in their homes, was an inner necessity. As amanuensis of Brahms he went where his master went. And as my teacher he helped me upwards not only by admitting me to these Sunday walks, but also by introducing me to some of the music lovers whose intimacy with Brahms seemed their greatest pride. In one of these families a private choir gathered once or twice a week, conducted by Dr Mandiczewski and led by the hostess, who in her youth had had a high reputation as a singer. I was asked to accompany this choir, sometimes four-hand with one of the sons of the family, approximately my age. He, Erich von Hornbostel, later a well-known physiologist, died much too young some years ago, in New York. Brahms came occasionally to these meetings. In his last years, he spent much time at the home of a music lover by the name of Conrad. Mr Conrad had three daughters, near my age. Mandiczewski introduced me also to the Conrads, not only as a young musician, but also as a possible playmate or companion for the girls. During the winter chiefly, the Sunday afternoons at the Conrads were devoted to chamber music performances. They had, of course, some music every weekday as well in such a milieu, but the Sunday was for all concerned (the head of the family, a merchant, and most of the professionals, or amateurs, who played the chamber music or listened) the time for leisure and pleasure — not to forget the girls who had no school. I was often allowed to participate actively. My never weakened love of chamber music is certainly rooted in this early chance to hear and perform it.

     Brahms was often present on these occasions. He mostly sat reading in the library, which was several rooms distant from the music room. All doors in the flight of rooms used to be wide open, and, if interested, Brahms might have heard the music very well. Whether he did or not I could not tell. Thirty or forty years later I read to my astonishment that he had. That moreover he had praised what I did at the piano. This story is still circulated. I do not know its origin, and I wish you to know that it was not I who told it. The reliability of many such stories (not only in my case) is questionable. I myself do not compile or supply them (I never have) for advertising or other purposes. This is for other people to attend to. Asked for it by concert managements I advise them to gather the desired data from books of reference and other sources and to select and present what and as they like. I admit that this procedure involves certain risks, After playing somewhere last year, on my return home I found the programme in my pocket. Interested to see whether the annotations in it corresponded to my conception of the works I had performed, I began to read. That the correspondence was not complete did not surprise me. I had experienced that before. What surprised me was the little sketch of my career. It said among other things that Brahms had heard me play at my first recital and had been so impressed that he had become an intimate friend of mine. Perhaps one day I shall read that I played billiards with Mozart.

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     Ossip Gabrilowitsch and Ignaz Friedman were co-students of mine at Leschetizky’s, though they came to him several years later than I. I was also acquainted with Samuel Clemens’s (Mark Twain’s) daughters, Clara and her sister. Clara later married Gabrilowitsch. I remember very distinctly several tea parties at Mark Twain’s apartment in the Hotel Metropole in Vienna. His appearance was unforgettably striking. I don’t remember that he ever spoke to me.

     I began composing at the same time I started playing the piano. My studies with Mandiczewski did not go further than the first elements of counterpoint. I never worked with a teacher on form or orchestration. The only thing which I really have ‘learned’ in my life was piano-playing. After my one year with Madame Essipoff, I occasionally had instruction from other Leschetizky assistants — five or six of them. They differed in pianistic functions as much as one can differ, and were also not at all unanimous in their approach to music. Each, of course, called his conception the true Leschetizky method. Several published books on it. If a student were to read all these books he would get a considerable demonstration of confusion. What I have learned from Leschetizky himself I am unable to say, to estimate, to appreciate. He succeeded in releasing all the vitality and élan and sense of beauty a student had in his nature, and would not tolerate any deviation or violation of what he felt to be truthfulness of expression. As you see, all this devotion, seriousness, care and honesty is compatible with the virtuoso type represented by him. Why we, today, have in general a less flattering opinion of the virtuoso is a problem I recommend you to think about again and again.

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     I was present at the Vienna début of Yvette Guilbert, the famous French diseuse, although I, as a boy of fifteen, had no business to be there. With no school in the morning I could stay at nightly debates as long as they lasted. They ranged from positivism to occultism — with everything in between. The flavour of decadence was never missing. This explains my impulse (enhanced by the advice of some friends) to go westwards, to Germany. The Germans were immensely, though rather secretly, respected and admired by the Viennese, with a kind of condescending awe. They considered them barbaric and boorish in comparison with the beauty, elegance and culture of the Viennese, with their charming (though empty) politeness — in the upper classes — and their soft speech. Nevertheless, a niggling inferiority complex slightly disturbed their self-esteem.

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     My mother and sisters left Vienna in ‘92 or ‘93 (I am not quite sure which) and went back to the cleaner of the twin cities near my birthplace. They went to join my father whose business kept him there. I was handed over to some strangers and became a kind of lodger. After three years, my entire family came back to Vienna. My father died there in 1927, and in 1942 my mother, at the age of eighty-four, was taken away by the Nazis and never heard of again. My sisters escaped to the United States.